Three Fingers on the Wrist — Epoche A1
Last winter the cough would not stop, so my mother took me to a Chinese medicine doctor near the market. He did not look at the cough. He put three fingers on the left wrist and waited. Then the right wrist, three fingers again. Both wrists, and a long time on each one. After that: "Show me your tongue." The medicine was not tablets. A man behind the counter weighed dried roots, leaves and small black fruit into seven paper packets. One packet a day, boiled in water. It tasted of old wood.